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The party must stop – Ato Forson cautions government

Ranking Member on Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, has warned that the recent economic stability the country is experiencing might be short-lived.

The Ghana cedi has in the past few weeks been recording some appreciation against the dollar. The cedi currently stands at 12.55 cedis to a dollar up from 14.5 cedis a month ago.

And fuel prices have seen some decrease in recent weeks.

According to Dr. Forson, with the International Monetary Fund having reached a staff level agreement with Ghanaian authorities, there was the need for government to ramp up activities to set in place their debt operation policy.

Ato Forson noted that while the gains are commendable, it will only be sustained if the domestic investor community massively subscribes to government’s debt exchange programme – which has suffered severe backlash from the investor community over its government-biased structure.

There have been concerns that the government has shifted the majority of the financial burden from the debt operation on the investor community while maintaining its ballooning fiscal deficit.

Ato Forson, speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express stated that if the government does not restructure its debt exchange policy to convince the investor community to come on board, things might get worse.

“I can see some form of stability going to come, but that stability will certainly be in the short term. Because now everybody is going to look at something we call ‘wait and see’ in the next couple of weeks. So if the ‘wait and see’ does not materialize, things can get worse.

“And that is why the government should not just be complacent and start enjoying. The party must stop. What they should do is that they should channel their effort into action. They should act because this stability will not last long, it will last maximum for two-three weeks.

“If by close of Friday the domestic debt restructuring effort fails completely if care is not taken, the small stability we’re seeing will be short-lived and it will get bad,” he said.

Source: Ghana News

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